Various kinds of electronic devices, e.g. notebook personal computers, cell phones, global positioning devices, as well as electronic gaming devices, rely on the touching of a flat panel, which may be a touch pad or a display screen of the electronic device. Two of the most popular sensing technologies used are resistive and capacitive sensing technologies, which provide users a convenient way to control the electronic devices as opposed to a mouse connected by a USB cable to the portable electronic device. However, the lack of positioning accuracy by a pointing device, e.g. a finger or a pointing stylus, tends to limit the use in an office environment.
Although, these electronic devices provide an advantage by being portable, it is difficult for them to be used in an office environment where the lack of positioning accuracy limits their use for data entry such as a word processor document or a spreadsheet where positioning accuracy is important. FIG. 1 of prior art shows a flat panel touch screen of a cellular phone commonly know as a smart phone 8, whereupon there are a number of relatively large icons, which are displayed simultaneously, that represent programs that can be activated when selected. The number of icons is a compromise between allowing a large number of them to be displayed at once and a size of each icon necessary to allow the user to be able to select them with the individual's finger. FIG. 1 shows an approximate size of a fingertip 9, which when misplaced can attempt to select up to four programs simultaneously.
The smart phone 8 shown in FIG. 1 uses a capacitor that lies behind the touch screen of the smart phone. When the surface of the smart phone screen is touched the capacitance of the capacitor is disturbed causing charge on the capacitor to change and current to flow into sensors usually positioned at each of the four corners of the smart phone. The change in current flow into these four sensors is then analyzed to determine the approximate location of the touch point of the user's finger. The resulting analysis only needs to be accurate enough to define an icon location, which can be seen from FIG. 1 has a fairly broad dimensional location; and therefore allows a fairly broad inaccuracy in the calculated prediction of the location of the user's finger touch. Further, this inaccuracy in the prediction of the location of the finger touch is a main reason why small electronic devices like the smart phone have extreme difficulty in data entry into the text of a word processor or a spreadsheet, and makes the smart phone nearly useless for this purpose. Thus use in a business environment is relegated to display operations of the programs represented by the various icons.
With respect to a notebook PC the cursor moving device is a touch pad that many users abandon for a PC mouse attached by an USB cable to the notebook PC. Ease of use and positional accuracy of the cursor pointer are two of the reasons for the abandonment of the touch pad; although, there are users who have become adept at using the touch pad for the convenience of not having to lug a computer mouse and the USB cable appendage in the mobile society for which the notebook PC was designed. Part of the problem is that the notebook PC touch pad has not kept up with the resolution and speed of the display for the notebook PC requiring the user to invoke several strokes on the touch pad to move the cursor from one location on the display screen to another.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,392,632 (Lee) is directed toward an optical cursor control device comprising an integrated camera, wherein captured images by an imaging device detects motion of the cursor control device. U.S. Patent Application No. 2005/0024336 (Xie et al.) is directed to the use of a Lambertian surface in a computer mouse to form a specular reflection, which provides an enhanced contrast to the image for purposes of navigation. U.S. Patent Application No. 2005/0024623 (Xie et al.) is directed to the use of a Lambertian surface and a narrow bandwidth of light in a computer mouse to form a narrow bandwidth specular reflection. U.S. Pat. No. 5,825,945 (Stolis et al.) is directed to an check imaging device using a Lambertian surface to project a highly uniform and diffused beam to an imaging site.
Whether it is the touch pad of a notebook PC or the pointing inaccuracy involved with a touch screen of a portable device, there is a need for a fast and accurate pointing control device for use with portable electronic units. The pointing control device must be integral to the portable electronic unit and have the speed and accuracy to facilitate the use of the portable electronic unit, such as the notebook PC, in the business environment, where word processor documents and spreadsheets can be easily created with accurate and easy data and word entry.